ICC Note: As Syria’s eight-year civil war begins to slow, the absence of the country’s Christians is increasingly noticeable. In a residential area where ISIS kidnapped over 220 Christians, the village and its surrounding areas have become like a ghost town. Rubble and abandoned homes fill the streets, empty of the Christians who once lived there. Sadly, many will never return even if the civil war fully resolves itself.     

08/16/2018 Syria (NYT) –   The memories of the retired oilman dot the village in Syria where he grew up. The mud chapel he got married in. The concrete church he helped build that would overflow with worshipers on holidays. The tight community of Assyrian Christian families who had lived together in this area for generations.

Now it’s a village of ghosts.

The church is a pile of rubble, its bell tower and its cross toppled over like a felled tree. The dirt paths are overgrown, walked by stray dogs. Most homes are empty, their owners in Germany, Australia, the United States and elsewhere.

“All the houses used to be full,” said the oilman, Ishaq Nisaan, 79. “Now on my street, it’s only me and my neighbor.”

The same fate has befallen all the surrounding villages, where Assyrian Christians, one of Syria’s many religious minorities, had long farmed and raised animals along the banks of the Khabur River in the country’s northeast.

The Islamic State attacked the area in 2015, kidnapping more than 220 residents. The jihadists were pushed out a few months later by Kurdish forces and local fighters, and released most of the captives after receiving exorbitant ransoms.

But the extremists demolished many of the area’s churches before they left, and almost all of the freed captives, along with their families and neighbors, have since fled, hollowing out the community.

“Life here is very nice, but there are no people,” said Ramina Noya, 23, a member of the local council governing the area. She stayed, but most of her relatives are in the United States.

Seven years of war in Syria have displaced half the country’s population and sent millions of refugees abroad. As the government of President Bashar al-Assad reclaims more territory from the rebels who sought to oust him, some people may return.

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